Catheters for use in medical procedures have come into widespread use. Particularly critical in terms of required strength and flexibility are catheters used for procedures such as electrophysiological therapy of the heart, for example in measurement of electrical activity within the heart and/or ablation of tissue for treatment of cardiac rhythm disturbances.
During these procedures, a physician steers a catheter through a blood vessel into the chamber of the heart that is to be treated. Steering wires extending into the catheter are provided in order to allow precise bending and steering of the catheter. It is, thus, important that the bonds between various components of the catheter have the integrity sufficient to withstand the necessary bending, twisting and tensile forces.
Heretofore, it has been common to form the bonds between catheter components such as between the catheter body and distal tip components by means of either adhesive bonds or by thermal bonds formed by melting of the materials of construction of the catheter components. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,254,107 issued to Soltesz on Oct. 19, 1993. A need has continued to exist for improved bonding methods and structures for such catheters.